


depth of field

by nasaplates



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Depression, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Homophobia, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Break Up, sort of but the college part doesn't feature too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-05-15 01:13:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19285057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasaplates/pseuds/nasaplates
Summary: Minseok and Luhan haven't seen each other in 5 years, since their fight about Luhan moving away. They meet again during Minseok's photography exhibition. This is a story about falling apart, only to come back together stronger than before.





	depth of field

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt Petal:** #141
> 
>  **Author's Note:** to the prompter: I hope this is something like what you were looking for, and that you don't mind my choice of setting too much.  
> to the mod: you're an angel, thank you so much for running such a lovely fest.  
> the biggest, warmest thank you to K, A, and M for the beta and cheerleading. I couldn't have done it without you.  
> and, as always: E, I love you.

_**depth of field** (n.) - the area in an image from front to back that is in focus. In both moving and still pictures, depth of field is widely used to call attention or create feelings, as focusing on one element in the image and leaving the rest blurry draws the audience to that part of the frame._

~

A cool spring rain patters on the roof of the car, on the windows, on the slick steep winding streets of San Francisco. The rains here are always cool, never the lush muggy pervasive stick-to-your-skin damp Luhan is familiar with, at home, in Beijing.

Here used to be home, too, for a while, but it's been five years and somehow he'd forgotten what it was like, with the fog, and the chill.

Flowering trees are letting loose their blossoms, swirling with the water, sticking to the sidewalk, to the shoulders of his coat.

The windshield wipers whump, back and forth, back and forth.

He sees two young men holding hands and running across the street, laughing, and he can feel himself falling into memory. Luhan shakes himself free of it before it can root in his heart.

He's only going to this exhibition as a friend, nothing more. Maybe something less than a friend. Maybe something more. What do you call someone who used to feel as necessary as your second lung, and who you now only speak to through Instagram likes and emoji-filled comments? An old friend? An ex? Minseok is both of those, and also neither.

It doesn't matter, now, Luhan decides, straightening his suit, running his fingers through his hair. Tonight isn't about him, anyway. Minseok had been waiting for his first gallery opening since before Luhan met him. Luhan was just going to be another supportive body in the room, another vessel of admiration for his photography.

He checks his watch, a Rolex, expensive. Luhan had bought it with the “please come work for us” check his new employers had given him. Plane tickets first, and then the watch. He had several already, including the first in his collection, a birthday present. It was from the Dollar Tree down the street from the shitty one room apartment he and Minseok had moved into their second year of undergrad. They'd agreed that since they were both poor hungry students and their birthdays were so close together they had to shop there, one item only. Minseok presented him with the bright pink plastic digital monstrosity wrapped in paint splattered newspaper. Luhan bought Minseok a coffee mug that said “Don't Go Bacon My Heart”.

The watch quit running sometime during his last year of business school. He was so busy he didn't notice until long after the screen went blank and refused to turn on again, even after changing out the batteries. He still kept it anyway, safely tucked in a box in his new apartment, between a Paguet and a Panerai.

The Rolex on his wrist reads 7:15pm, no longer so on time as to appear too eager, but still not in danger of being late. The best moment for slipping into the crowd and going unnoticed.

Luhan checks his mirrors for cars and opens the car door, flinging himself quickly into the misting rain and across the street to the more sheltered sidewalk. He shoves his hands into his pockets, hunches into his collar. The umbrella was still packed away, but he wouldn't have used it anyway. It always felt odd to when his earliest memories of this city were of running up and down it's hills from storefront to storefront to avoid getting drenched.

 

***

 

The rain was absolutely absurd, had been for weeks now. Minseok had lived here all his life and every winter it still managed to shock him just how _much_ it could rain. It was like when spring came the sun wiped out every memory of the endless dreary damp. He sighed, staring out the window forlornly, wondering if there was any point checking the weather forecast.

“Oh my god that’s it,” Luhan said, making Minseok jump a little. He turned to look at him, Luhan’s hands on his hips, dark circles under his eyes, but something mischievous around the corners of his lips. “We’re going out.”

“What, _now_?” Minseok squawked. “It’s _pouring_!”

Luhan grabbed him by the hand and tugged. “Don’t care, out, now, let’s go!”

Minseok went numbly at first, dragged down the single flight of stairs, but stopped at the doorway, frowning at the rain dripping off the overhang to puddle in front of the door.

Luhan looked at him and smirked, leaned forward until Minseok could smell his aftershave. Minseok’s traitorous heart skipped a beat. “Race you to Peet’s,” he murmured, flicking a glance to Minseok’s lips.

By the time Minseok’s lust addled brain processed the words, Luhan had bolted, laughing. Minseok let out a yell and took off after him, breathless, almost wishing for his camera so he could capture Luhan’s soaking wet smile when he turned to run backwards for two steps, face like the sun.

 

***

 

Luhan’s hand is resting on the door, but his mind is miles away. He watches the two smiling young men up the hill, still hand in hand, stealing soggy kisses. He can hear their laughter across the city block, over the sound of the rain. With a blink and a sigh, he opens the door.

 

***

 

Minseok and Luhan went to the same university, even shared a few GE classes, but they didn't meet on campus. No, they met when Minseok was cussing out a rose bush.

His aunt lived in the city, ground floor apartment in one of the only rent controlled buildings left, with a small courtyard garden that no one really cared for. She gave him home cooked meals and told him terrible jokes, and he maintained the garden. Most of the time he thought this was a great trade, because he'd have happily done the work even without food and fodder to torment his friends with. On that day, though, he needed to heavily prune the twelve foot tall thorny monstrosity blocking the side gate to the street.

"No," he said, sternly, to the branch he was gingerly holding back with a gloved hand. He eyed the easily eight foot spiky thing that towered over his head. It seemed a bit cruel to cut it so severely, but it was making itself sick by overgrowing, so. It had to be done. He adjusted his hold on the branch, hoping to avoid being sliced to ribbons. "Stay."

With his other hand he swiftly cut the branch before he lost his nerve. The top immediately began to dip and he knew he was fucked. He ducked and dodged on nimble feet to avoid the worst of it but he still got a long stinging cut to his forearm as the stalk came crashing down onto the metal fence.

"Mother _fucker_!" he hissed, checking the cut, which was already bleeding. "I told you to _stay_ you miserable _bastard_."

"Uh," came a man's voice from the sidewalk on the other side of a pile of cut rose and fence. Minseok's blood drained from his face in embarrassment at having been heard. "You're not...ohhhh," the voice had come closer and then paused. "Oh, that's. You're talking to the _plant_. Okay. Ohhhkay."

Minseok laughed. "Um. Yeahhh," he said, rubbing his cheek with the back of a wrist. "This is a, uh, very mean rose. Needed a stern talking to."

The man laughed. It was a good laugh. Minseok's cheeks hurt from smiling, suddenly. He'd been a bit out of practice lately.

"Can I, um," the man paused and Minseok thought he heard him honest to God scuff his toe on the sidewalk. "Can I help?"

Looking around at the daunting pile of thorny branches, Minseok weighed the risk/reward of letting some guy he hadn't even seen into his aunt's garden. He also considered the odd twinge to his pride that came with the offer. Of course he didn't need _help_.

"Uh, I think I should be alright? Thanks though," he said, politely.

The man snorted. "Can you even get out of there without being impaled?"

It was then that Minseok realized the man could actually _see him_ through a gap in the rose carnage and fence.

Calling him a man was accurate, but he was pretty clearly Minseok's age; 19, maybe 20. He was also very very familiar, with his blond hair glowing in the sun, perfect skin shining, kind eyes and genuine concern. He'd had a couple classes with him, seen him around campus. Minseok had always _noticed_ him but never said anything. Besides, Minseok was a 'back of the class reading the textbook and only half listening to the professor' kind of student. This guy, he was usually in the middle, surrounded by a pack of chuckling friends. He always got the impression he did some kind of sport but didn't know for sure.

"Oh," the man said after they made eye contact and Minseok grinned at him once he'd recovered from the shock of his not-crush speaking to him. "I know you," he said, pointing an index finger at him. "Don't I know you?"

"Uh," Minseok replied, very intelligently.

"Intro to Philosophy!" the man snapped his fingers, shot him a finger gun. "You're the guy that never said a single word until one day you _shredded_ the professor for mocking that one girl for stuttering. I fucking love you, man, that was badass."

Minseok didn't blush. He did _not_. He did laugh, and he hoped it sounded suave and not deranged. It helped that that professor _still_ made his blood boil. "That guy was a fucking asshole."

"Damn right," the man said. "I'm Luhan, by the way!" His voice was cheerful, smile delighted, like a little kid that found a penny on the ground.

"Minseok," he replied, reflexively.

"Well, Minseok," Luhan said, shoving his sleeves up to his elbows. "Let's see if we can get you out of there."

 

***

 

Luhan slides into the room, shakes raindrops off his coat as he takes it off and slings it over his left forearm with the easy confidence of familiarity. He smiles the same way, shaking the patters of his heart off his face with a wide warm smile to the cute young woman who greets him and hands him a small pamphlet about the art and the artist. He glances at it out of politeness. There's mild curiosity there, to see how Minseok described himself, how he phrased his art and his methods. It was always his least favorite part, the titles, and the descriptions. Luhan shakes off the memories, too. They're stickier than rainwater, but he supposes he wouldn't be here if they weren't.

The gallery is a small space, made smaller by the number of people. Not all of them, or the photographs, are immediately visible, temporary walls painted matte black set up to make the visitors move through the gallery.

The first wall holds a large print of a rose bud, the deep red just peeking through, reaching for the sunlight through the black grating of a fence. Freedom and entrapment. It's titled _Let's see if we can get you out of there_. Luhan snorts.

 

***

 

It had been three days since Minseok had left his room. Three days of unseasonable pouring rain, staring aimlessly from his bed at the drops racing each other down the window, three days of watching the flowers in his coffee mug slowly wither and die.

He wasn’t alone in the house, Jongdae had moved in only a week after Luhan had packed the last of his things, him needing a new place, Minseok not able to make the rent on his own. Minseok, not really able to make much of anything, on his own.

He’d been fine, at first, too angry for anything but violent fits of energy; vigorous cleaning, carrying almost all of Jongdae’s things himself, running up and down the stairs with arms full of heavy boxes until he was drenched in sweat. Jongdae had looked at him with kindness, but never pity. Minseok loved him for it, with whatever was left of his heart that could hold anything approaching ‘love.’

It wasn’t until a week after Jongdae moved in that it really hit him that Luhan wasn’t coming back. He woke up, barely functional, and poured two mugs of coffee on reflex before he remembered that Luhan was in Beijing, in a late meeting, maybe, trying to impress the bosses. Or out on the town, dancing in a club. Images came to Minseok unbidden; hands that weren’t his own touching Luhan, Luhan touching back.

Minseok was calm. He took the extra mug, knocked softly on Jongdae’s door, and asked the drowsy lump of his best friend if he’d like it. When Jongdae accepted, he gently closed the door behind him, went back to his room, and took a single photograph before he collapsed on his bed and sobbed.

On that third day, Jongdae knocked politely on Minseok’s door but didn’t wait for permission to come in. He gave him one long loving look and said, “Come on, Minseokkie. Let’s go somewhere.”

Minseok didn’t really remember much of the ride in Jongdae’s old Honda Civic, just pressed his forehead to the window, soaking in whatever rays of sun that could make it through the clouds. It had stopped raining, finally, but the hills as they drove past them were vivid green.

Jongdae finally parked the car in front of a sand dune, the sea so close Minseok could smell it through the closed door, the closed windows. Before he could get out, Jongdae stopped him, a hand on his elbow while he reached into the back seat, pulled out Minseok’s camera bag, and gently but firmly pressed it into his hands. Minseok stared down at it. He didn’t know why he felt betrayed by the camera. Maybe because it had seen the last seven years of his life, too. Maybe because it, more than maybe even Luhan, knew what he had lost.

Minseok went to put the camera down in the footwell of the passenger seat but Jongdae gripped his elbow in a tight squeeze and release. When Minseok looked up at him, there was kindness all over his face, but something determined too. “For me?” he said, gentle but fierce. Minseok thought about what it must be like, a man that kind-hearted living with his best friend, a ghost.

Minseok took the camera.

They walked in a long, winding, aimless kind of way, quiet like Jongdae often is, comfortable, like seeing the same beautiful things was the same as having a conversation. It was exactly what Minseok needed, then. Fresh air, and no one asking him how he was feeling.

He took a few photographs along the way, timid at first, but some things had always drawn him in a way he had trouble resisting. So, he let himself be drawn in, mindlessly, almost meditative. He took a few photographs of Jongdae, too, although portraits had never been his strong suit, maybe out of gratitude, maybe just because he looked so at home there, the sea and the trees and the fog and Jongdae, in his two sweaters, smiling like the world was soft and good.

When they got to the beach they sat in the sand, Minseok oddly tired from a walk that normally would’ve been nothing at all to him. Half an hour went by, maybe more, them both still silent, just listening and watching the waves. Jongdae sang something, almost too quiet to be sung for anyone but the wind, but Minseok heard it. A gentle song in Korean, probably one of his own compositions, about loss and love and spring.

If he noticed Minseok crying, he never said.

 

***

 

Luhan continues walking through the gallery, pausing in front of each photo. There’s a triptych he doesn’t recognize, which shouldn’t surprise him since five years is a long time, a lot of photographs. He tries not to think about all the other things he’s missed, too.

It’s a coastal series, not Ocean Beach, but somewhere farther up the coast, even rockier and colder looking than a lot of San Francisco beaches are most of the time.

The first photograph is of delicate white wildflowers, damp petals gleaming, scaled so that you can see the distinctive bark of the redwood tree it’s growing under, a hint of fog at the edges of the photo, a beach just visible in the hazy background.

Next is one of the coastal succulents that seem to be everywhere in this part of Northern California. The focus is on one of the flowers, an alien looking pink bloom, the petals looking a bit like tentacles, the center yellow, the entire plant clawing its way out of a sand dune, reaching for whatever sun it can find.

The last photo is of a single red long stem rose, just past its prime, petals starting to wither and brown. It’s floating in the surf like it’s just been tossed there to be dragged back from the pebbled shore into the foaming sea.

Luhan squints at the title plaque to read the Korean script there. 슬픔조차 결국엔 추억이 되어, it reads. Luhan’s Korean is rusty from disuse, and it’s an unfamiliar phrase, almost a bit poetic. Something along the lines of “One day even the sadness becomes a memory.” As he’s translating he thinks about the specific term used for ‘memory.’ There’s an implication in it, that the memory is a happy one.

It isn’t difficult to figure out the reference the photo is making, the journey of the triptych, the intention of the rose. There’s a melancholy tint to it all, and the place is familiar, like Luhan has been there before. The dying red rose gifted to an ocean that shares a shore with China.

There’s an ache in Luhan’s chest. He hopes it’s true, that Minseok found happiness in the memories, eventually.

 

***

 

It happened slowly.

Nights spent at the office, days spent with people who weren’t each other. “I don’t want to talk about it,” and “It doesn’t matter,” and silent fights that were never truly resolved. Petty annoyances that grew into cold wars of toothpaste caps left off intentionally, and favorite foods eaten out of spite. Sex that felt less like making love, and more like scratching an itch.

It happened suddenly, too.

Minseok was just putting the finishing touches on setting their tiny table, candles and flowers, their favorite takeout place put out on plates, the nice chopsticks set neatly to one side, when Luhan came home from work, about two weeks after Luhan’s graduation from business school. It had been long enough, Minseok thought, to finally ask the question he’d been wanting to ask for the past two years. The rings were nestled, almost hidden, on the stem of a beautiful red peony in the bouquet sitting cheekily in a coffee mug.

Luhan was on the phone when he came in, speaking in quick Mandarin. Minseok couldn’t catch everything, not fluent enough for it, but he clearly understood that it was a discussion of flight plans, and living accommodations, and overly polite “I look forward to working for you.”

Minseok watched Luhan go through the process of leaving his work at the door; shoes toed off, jacket hung up, briefcase set down, watch carefully removed into the dish on the table. His head was a fog, that hazy space between hurt, confusion, and anger that didn’t know what it was directed at yet.

“Han…?” he asked, cautious. Hoping he was wrong.

“I got the job!” Luhan said, smiling happily, skipping forward to take Minseok’s face in his hands and peck him on his numb, unresponsive lips. “What’s all this?” he asked, looking at the table, the flowers. He couldn’t see the rings, from there.

“What job?” Minseok asked, and his voice must be devoid enough of emotion to grab Luhan’s attention. He frowned.

“The job? The one I’ve been interviewing for? In Beijing, with my father’s company! It’s perfect, really close to this apartment complex I know you’re gonna love, there’s an enormous rooftop garden, and it’s close to a park, and only a quick train to the largest botanical garden in China, you’ll have so many new things to photograph -”

He continued on, babbling happily, hands loosely holding Minseok’s and using them to gesture as he spoke. Minseok had stopped listening after ‘Beijing.’

“Beijing?” he said, interrupting, slipping his hands from Luhan’s. Luhan blinked. “You. You’re moving to Beijing?”

Luhan blinked again, frowned deeply. “No,” he said, slowly, confusion obvious in his voice. “ _We_ are moving to Beijing.”

The anger found a place to root in Minseok’s chest. He welcomed it, let it turn his voice icy and hard. “So. You accepted a job that you never told me about, and expect me to move my entire life to China? Without, oh, I dunno, _asking my opinion first_?”

Luhan took a step back. “What do you mean I never told you about it, I have to have, I’ve been talking about it nonstop for weeks.”

Minseok huffed. “Yeah, weeks in which you were,” he ticked the points off on his fingers, “studying, working, studying _while_ working, working while _studying_ , hanging out with ‘The Boys’,” he used mock air quotes, “going for a walk, or fucking me like I’m a sex doll, or, y’know, like I’m a dildo, for variety.” And oh, there were tears starting at the corner of his eyes, now. “Do you even know what I’m doing now?” he asked, angry, angry at Luhan, angry at himself, angry at the tears in his eyes. “Of course you don’t. My life is so meaningless I’m naturally going to be _thrilled_ to leave it because you said so.” His throat closed off and he stopped, balled his hands into fists.

Luhan said nothing. Minseok thought about all the loneliness he’d been pretending he hadn’t felt for so many months. He thought about two rings, resting on the leaves of a peony two feet from hands that he knew, now, would never wear them. One traitorous tear fell down his cheek.

“Min, I,” Luhan said, softly, reaching one hand toward him. Minseok didn’t know when they had gotten too far apart to touch.

“Get out.”

He didn’t know he was going to say the words until they’d already left his mouth. They hurt, like pulling out a thorn.

You could’ve heard a petal fall from a flower, it was so quiet in the apartment. Luhan held his breath. Minseok knew, from long experience, that he was waiting for Minseok to take it back. He didn’t.

“Minseok,” Luhan tried again, but Minseok was certain now, and too angry to even consider changing his mind.

The fight continued, both of them firey and exhausted by turns. Minseok couldn’t remember what they said to each other the next day, just the feeling of words tearing their way out of his throat, and the sound of shattering ceramic when one of them threw a plate against the wall in anger, and the look on Luhan’s face when he finally got fed up and slammed his way into his shoes, and his coat, and left.

In the echoing silence, Minseok fixated on Luhan’s watch, still there on the side table. He thought about bringing it to him, chasing after him down the stairs and finding him in the San Francisco streets. He thought about apologizing, about kissing him, about telling him he’d go anywhere in the world as long as he stayed. He thought about lonely nights in a country far from everything he’d worked for, everything he knew.

He did none of those things. Instead, Minseok crawled into bed and sank into sheets that smelled like a life and a man he didn’t think he could still call ‘his’.

When he dragged himself home the next night, late after an emergency at the gallery he worked at, and a long winding walk to avoid whatever he would find in his apartment, all of Luhan’s things were either gone or neatly packed into boxes, waiting by the door. On the little side table where Luhan’s watch usually rested, was a single plane ticket, SFO to Beijing.

The plane took off without him.

 

***

 

Luhan turns back and sees a photo he had missed, tucked into an odd corner, out of the flow of the rest of them. Don’t Go Bacon My Heart mug, on a windowsill, the glass behind it covered in rain drops, flowers dried and wilted and drooping out of the mug, some of the brown petals scattered on the windowsill.

It should be overly dramatic, eyeroll worthy teenaged shit, but it isn’t. There’s something plain about it. Something direct instead of self-pitying. It’s too crisp, everything in focus, to belong on some emo kid’s Tumblr.

When he steps closer he sees two platinum rings still looped around the stem of a long dead peony, Luhan’s favorite. He sucks in a breath, feels a vice around his throat and his chest. Swallowing heavily he blinks away sudden stinging moisture in his eyes.

He hadn’t known. How had he not known.

 

***

 

The last summer of Luhan's business school graduate program the two of them took a full week of vacation from their respective jobs. They spent the first three days relearning each other, barely leaving the bed. It wasn't that they had any issues with their sex life the rest of the time, but having nothing to do but revel in each other was a privilege, and a treat, and so they indulged.

On the fourth day, after slow and sweet morning sex, Minseok was itching to see the sun and so they drove north, to Muir Woods. It was a favorite of Minseok's, the old Dipsea trail free from the tourists in the paved part of the forest. ("Dipsea, get it? Over the mountain, and DIP in the SEA?" Minseok made the same joke every time, and Luhan rolled his eyes every time, but he smiled too, so Minseok counted it a win.)

There was something about the trees, and the first view of the sea over the mountains like a secret gift for the effort of the hike. It always felt like anything was possible there.

They stopped a little over halfway through the hike at the side of a stream burbling down a steep ravine, shrouded in ancient redwood trees. It was lush with ferns and other plants that looked jurassic, otherworldly, like a pterodactyl was going to come soaring through the foliage at any moment.

Minseok twisted this way and that, trying to find an angle that came close to capturing the air and the smell and the size of it all. He always failed, but he lived in hope that someday he would manage.

Luhan laughed at him when he laid down right on the trail, shooting straight in the air. When Minseok came upright again and sat next to him on a fallen log, Luhan looked both ways and, finding the trail empty of people, cupped Minseok's face in his hands and kissed him, soft and slow, easy, familiar.

Minseok kissed him back and thought about the matching rings he’d had planned for months now, thought about the number of times he'd almost bought them

Luhan murmured something in Mandarin, something cheesy, about arriving, and summer, and an intimate "you."

Minseok rolled his eyes and kissed him again to shut him up. But he was smiling into the kiss and he thought, _This time next year, I’ll have the rings. I’ll ask the question then_.

 

***

 

Luhan walks past several new photographs in a daze of revelation, and understanding, and pain in a place he thought was healed. Matching rings haunt him no matter what beautiful images come before him.

Some of the photographs are familiar, some aren’t. A few delicate apple blossoms, petals so translucent with morning dew they look like tissue paper. Another triptych, this one of multicolored daisies with raindrops clinging to the petals, looking like ballet dancers somehow, mid-flight, ode to spring. Grape vines winding through a trellis, fruit just starting to show. A bougainvillea on the side of a home, resplendent with color, Lombard and Coit Tower an only-just-recognizable blur in the background. Ferns curling delicately toward the sun.

And then, turning the last corner in this odd half maze of a gallery, is a floor to ceiling photo that steals the breath from Luhan’s chest.

It’s of him, but he’s not sure if anyone would recognize it as him. In the photo he has an array of flowers and branches resting on his head in a crown, his hair a golden blond. It’s taken from a low angle, like the photographer was beneath him at the time, and he looks like Apollo with how sundrenched he is, how powerful. Facing up and to the left, but his eyes are slanted to look directly at the viewer, a smirk quirking his lips. There are high grasses framing his face, also golden, also drenched in summer.

He remembers the moment, now. He’d come out to his parents, very publicly, an hour before. Minseok had been there, never once letting go of his hand. His eyes sting again.

He isn’t startled by the hand that weaves its way into his, even though he should be. Luhan’s fingers have been aching for too long for this specific grip for his heart to stutter in anything but relief. Minseok is there, looking just the same as he did five years ago, feeling just the same, too, like the air in Luhan’s lungs remembers what it’s like to share space with him.

There’s concern on his beautiful face. “Is this alright?” he says, his voice like a blanket tucked over Luhan’s shoulders when he didn’t even know he was cold. “I almost asked, but -”

Luhan interrupts. He has to, he can’t let another instant go by with Minseok thinking he might have done something _wrong_. “It’s fine, it’s more than fine. It’s amazing, Min.” He pauses, swallows. “You’re amazing.”

Minseok smiles, head tipped down to hide a blush. Looks back up, serious, eyes staring at Luhan like he’s trying to read something there. “So. You came.”

“I, uh.” Luhan scratches an eyebrow with his thumb, an awful tell that Minseok tracks. His hand grips just a touch tighter. “I’m back.”

Minseok just blinks for a moment. “Back?”

“Here, the city, I got a job offer and, well.” Luhan shrugs, missing nonchalant by a mile. “I took it.”

“Oh.” Minseok says, stares at their joined hands, one heartbeat, two, three. He looks up again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Another long searching moment. Minseok scratches the back of his head, grinning gently. “Listen,” he says, “I have to stay for a while longer, shake hands, talk with people, help clean up once the gallery closes, but. If you’re not busy, um. Do you want to…?”

“Yes.”

The suddenness of Luhan’s response seems to punch a laugh out of Minseok’s chest, and he smiles with both eyebrows raised, half surprise, half amusement. Luhan clears his throat, shuffles his feet like he hasn’t since he was a boy with his first crush. “God I wasn’t,” he starts, coughs nervously, continues, “I wasn’t going to do this, not here, maybe not, not ever, I don’t know.” He takes a moment, looks around at the handful of people milling around, some of them looking at the photos, one older woman unashamedly watching, eavesdropping. She makes eye contact with him, and nods encouragingly before turning back to the woman she’s with. Luhan takes a breath, looks at Minseok’s expectant face, and gathers his courage. “But I. I came back for you, Minseok. I didn’t know if you’d want that or if you’d be with someone else, or. Hell, if you’d ever forgive me. But I had to know. And even if you never wanted to speak to me again, well.” He makes eye contact, stands up straight. "I'd know I tried. And I'd. I'd know you know."

The next ten seconds feel like lifetimes, his heart on the scales in Minseok’s eyes vastly more terrifying than when he asked him out the first time around. Then, he only knew Minseok would make him happy. Now, he knew with five years of certainty that no one else ever would.

“Ok,” Minseok says. Just like that. Direct, easy, like he read the word off a page.

“Ok?” Luhan’s voice is shaky with hope and relief and something that might be joy. Minseok smiles so wide it takes up his entire face. Luhan’s never seen anything so beautiful in all his life.

“Yeah.”

 

***

 

They'd just graduated, Luhan from the school of business, Minseok with an arts degree his family smiled bemusedly at, more understanding of his business minor than what he would ever do with a degree in studio arts, but they showed up to celebrate all the same, and he was grateful.

Luhan's parents had flown in from China for the occasion, too, and had confusedly accepted Minseok and the rest of the guys who'd been part of that morning's arts and social sciences graduation, sitting next to them for their second ceremony of the day, just so they could wolf whistle when Luhan crossed the stage.

They'd agreed not to tell Luhan's parents about their relationship, Luhan still not out to them. Minseok understood. He understood more during the wine tasting trip that Luhan had practically begged him to come along to. It hadn't taken begging, really, the views were always spectacular even if he didn't quite understand the fascination with the wine. But with every thinly veiled sound of disgust at every sign of open homosexuality, Luhan's shoulders wound tighter and tighter.

Minseok was a patient man. Even as a child, his grandmother used to marvel at the way he could sit for hours working on a drawing, crayon in a tiny fist, with a focus beyond his years. He was a loyal man, too, always the first to stand up for his friends and loved ones. He'd do much worse things for Luhan than chuckle politely at bad jokes from a man who'd probably wash his hands if he knew he'd just shaken hands with a gay man. But even he had his limits.

Calmly, nodding to Luhan's mother, Minseok stood up from the table and packaged his anger and his hurt into the steps it took him to walk over to two men at the railing, one with his arm outstretched to take a selfie, the other kissing his cheek. Behind him, the hills covered in lush grape vines rolled out until they met the sky, grand and gorgeous in the Alexander Valley summer sun. With a smile, he offered to take their picture, and they gratefully accepted.

Behind him, Luhan set his glass of designated driver's soda down with a click Minseok felt in his spine.

"I'm gay." Luhan spat it out, firm, angry, in English, a language with no honorifics. Minseok saw his own heart stop in the eyes of the couple he was photographing. They all turned to look at the family disaster unfolding before them.

Luhan's back was straight, hand on the table clenched into a fist, a terrible smile on his face. Minseok wanted to go to him, wanted to carry him away, wanted to cover his mouth with his, wanted to punch his father in the face. He couldn't move.

"I went to school here because I knew I could be open about it. Because I knew I'd be away from you, and that look on your face." You could hear the breeze rustling the grape leaves. No one breathed. "Minseok is my boyfriend. I love him." Minseok watched Luhan's throat bob on a tight swallow, watched the tremors in his hands.

Finally, Minseok's feet unglued themselves from the patio. He shoved the phone back at the man, who grimaced and nodded in sympathy. Three long steps and a hand on his boyfriend's shoulder, which Luhan immediately took, tightly, in his. Luhan's father's face was completely unreadable, but his mother's eyes were soft and edged in tears. She looked at Minseok, and Minseok looked back.

Luhan stood, keeping Minseok's hand in his, gave his mother a half bow. He switched to Mandarin. "I'm sorry, mama. Ask concierge to call you a driver." And with that he strode away, pulling Minseok with him.

He drove, silent and furious, for half an hour, one hand white knuckled on the steering wheel. Minseok didn't try to say anything, just kept a hold of Luhan's other hand in a fierce grip, watching the golden hills pass with his heart steady and full in his chest. He thought about parents, and about love, and the way mountains change on a time scale that humans could only fathom in theory. But mostly he thought that he'd protect this man from all the ugliness in the world if he could, and if he couldn't, then he'd show him the beauty that still existed.

When they got close to a spot Minseok knew, he moved for the first time on the ride, cupping Luhan's hand in both of his. "Pull over, up here, by the oak," he murmured, voice barely louder than the tires on the road.

Luhan did, not asking why. They sat in thick quiet for a moment, letting the dust settle.

"Come on," Minseok said, still gentle. Luhan nodded, stiff, and extracted his hand from Minseok's. Minseok picked up his bag from the footwell of the passenger seat, and got out.

They hiked up the hill, Minseok a half step behind, still leading with soft touches, and the sense of each other that got stronger every day. When they got to the top of the hill, a single oak tree stood. With neither of them saying a word, they both sat, side by side under the branches, and looked out at the view. California hillside, dotted with trees and cows, high golden grasses waving like the sea in the wind.

Luhan tipped backwards and lay in the grass, dappled shade painting patterns across his features. Minseok lay back too, watching him until he sighed, deeply, and opened his eyes. With one hand on his cheek, Minseok tipped Luhan's face and kissed him.

"I'm sorry," Minseok whispered against his mouth. Luhan frowned, their faces so close Minseok only knew because he could feel it.

"They're the homophobes," Luhan said, the last word mangled a bit in his throat. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I love you."

"I know," Minseok said. "But I'm still sorry."

They said nothing for a long time, foreheads pressed together, breathing in tandem with the world.

When Luhan's shoulders finally relaxed, Minseok pecked him on the lips and sat up, rummaged through his bag. He pulled out a flower crown he'd been working on, half a thought to present it as part of his final portfolio, but in the end he'd had other ideas, and hadn't had time. But he'd liked it, so he kept working on it, had brought it with half an idea to take some self portraits in it among the grapes.

The crown was made from olive branches, stripped of leaves and then woven together so they dried in a circlet, with flowers tied among them. A sunflower, a deep red peony, a playful spray of gladiolus, the exotic head of a bird of paradise, red and orange roses and yellow daisies with purple centers.

Minseok, half to make Luhan smile, set the crown on Luhan's head. Luhan sat up and rolled his eyes, adjusting the crown and making a face, but there it was, a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth. Minseok pulled out his camera next, snapping photos of the landscape, a handful of Luhan looking off into the distance, regal and wild, beautiful with the world heavy on his shoulders.

Eventually, Luhan realized he was being photographed, Minseok seeing the smirk on his face through the lens of his camera, the breathtaking look of confidence, and happiness, and love.

Luhan turned to him, carefully pulled the camera from his hands and laid it safely in his bag. And then, there, with no one but the birds and the oak to see, he kissed Minseok and pressed him back against the grass.

 

***

 

The hours pass faster than Luhan expected, spent looking at the photos, catching up with the rest of the boys, who he'd missed fiercely while he'd been gone, or just watching Minseok make the rounds in almost disbelieving anticipation.

Finally, at sometime near midnight, they pick up their coats and step out into the street, Minseok locking the gallery door behind him.

They walk for a while in silence, shoulders hunched against the chill. The rain had passed, but the air is still damp and new.

“Y'know today's the first day of spring?” Minseok says into the silence. Luhan breathes against the smile that wants to erupt just at being able to hear his voice.

“Yeah?” Luhan replies.

“Mhmm, new beginnings and all that."

They're quiet again, but it's a warm quiet, between their breathing and the sounds of a city that is always alive, and the tap of their shoes on the pavement.

“I bet I could win, this time,” Minseok says, casually in the way that always signals he's laughing internally. Luhan knows immediately what he means, remembers that rainy day when Minseok had been moping so badly he'd finally dragged him out and raced him to the coffee shop. He laughs.

“Hm. Bit old to be racing to the dim sum place on 22nd," he says, looking out of the corner of his eye just enough to catch the edges of Minseok's smile.

“Oh, definitely,” Minseok says, mock seriously.

“We _are_ pushing 30," Luhan continues, grave. "Me, a respected businessman, you, an artist with your own gallery showing.” He adds dramatic arm gestures to himself and then to Minseok.

“Oh yeah. Way too old. Distinguished, even.” Minseok nods, mouth pursing as he looks at the sky between the buildings above them, trying to pinch back a smile.

“Mhmm.”

Their eyes catch, both of them warm and trying to hold the thin facade of seriousness. Minseok breaks first, grins happily, and takes off, Luhan laughing a half step behind.

 

***

 

A week before the exhibition, Minseok was deciding which of two choices was going to be his final photo, the big masterpiece, massive print at the end of his gallery journey.

One was his most technically masterful photo, possibly ever in his life, a shot taken at a local aviary, upwards through leaves and flowers at a variety of birds, perched and in flight. It was a riot of color, a cacophony of texture. Petals and leaves and feathers and sunlight streaming through geometric glass panels all in an odd mix of chaos and order. There was something almost abstract about it, the way the lines worked together even if the content were to be unrecognizable. If the viewer followed the lines of the shapes throughout the piece, they were rewarded by finding, just blow the center of the photo, a single bird, staring directly at the camera, the single stable, focused point in a maelstrom of life.

The other was Luhan. Minseok had lost count of how many photos of Luhan he'd looked through when considering the pieces for the exhibit. It stood to reason that the man he'd been in love with for nearly six years of his life would be a focus of his art. But this one, of him looking like the god of summer, like Achilles before he ever knew Hector's name, it was, well. Minseok didn't know what it was, precisely, to anyone else. But to him, this was the Luhan who'd just claimed him as his boyfriend in front of his parents, and the Luhan who was about to make love to him, there on the hill in the high sunlit grass.

Minseok's photography instructors would all tell him to choose the aviary. Minseok's heart was equally decided on Luhan.

He stared at first one photo, and then the other, and then he pulled out his phone and called Junmyeon.

"Hello? Minseok?" Junmyeon picked up after the third ring, sounds of shuffling pages in the background. He couldn't have been too busy or he wouldn't have answered at all, but the life of a professor before spring break was bound to be hectic.

"Hey, can I ask your opinion on something?" Minseok asked, chewing his lip, still looking between the photos. Junmyeon grunted in agreement.

Minseok took a deep breath.

"Should I forgive him?"

It wasn't the question he meant to ask. He meant to ask about the photos, Junmyeon had seen them both and had a great eye for these things, and an objective perspective. But, Minseok supposed, he'd asked the question he really wanted the answer to, anyway.

They all knew Luhan was coming back. He thought it was a secret, but he'd told Zitao about the job offer he'd accepted in SF, and Zitao had told Kris, and Kris told Yixing, who told Baekhyun, who told everyone else. And even though Luhan hadn't told Zitao he was going to Minseok's exhibit, he'd liked Minseok's professional Instagram account's post about it, and then made plans, according to Zitao, that would get him to the city in time that he could go.

So, it stood to reason that he'd be there, at the exhibit. It stood to reason that they'd see each other again, for the first time in almost five years. Minseok didn't know what that meant, didn't know how he felt about it, not really, not completely. But, he was staring at a five foot tall portrait of his ex almost-fiance. So, he asked.

Junmyeon was quiet on the other end of the line. "Do you love him?" he asked. Minseok froze. "Not _did_ you love him, we all know you loved each other. Do you love him now?" Minseok stayed frozen. Junmyeon continued. "When you think about him, and being with him, and the idea of sharing air with him, does it hurt? Or does it make you feel good?"

Minseok let out the breath he'd been holding, but he still didn't answer so Junmyeon spoke again. "Because if you're still hurting I'm going to say no, and then break his kneecaps." Minseok snorted out a laugh. "But if not, if you love him, then. You already have forgiven him, you just think maybe you shouldn't have."

"Yeah," Minseok said. "Yeah, I think. I do. Love him, I mean." It was painful and freeing to say it. Love was always terrifying. Love that may end in a second disaster, even more so.

"Well, there you go." Junmyeon sounded a bit distracted, like he was only half in the conversation, problem solved, moving on. "If you're asking if I would forgive him, no. I'd get revenge. But then I've never loved someone like that, and," he adds, voice shifting to a professor making a point, "I've never been loved like that, either. He fucked up." Minseok could hear the shrug over the phone. "Don't throw away another chance at happiness because you're scared he's going to fuck up again. Who knows, maybe he learned his lesson."

Minseok smiled. "Yeah," he said, "maybe." He brushed a hand down the frame of Luhan's portrait. "Thanks, Junmyeon."

They said their goodbyes and hung up, Minseok slipping his phone back into his pocket.

He looked at Luhan's face, and he smiled.

~ 

是因为你我的夏天才来到

shì yīnwèi nǐ wǒ de xiàtiān cái lái dào

_My summer arrived because of you_

**Author's Note:**

> flower symbolism and meanings:  
> olive branches - peace, victory, an end to fighting  
> sunflower - loyalty, optimism, good luck  
> peony - honor, romance, happy marriage  
> gladiolus - strength, faithfulness  
> bird of paradise - success, overcoming obstacles, freedom  
> red rose - passion, deep romantic love  
> orange rose - thanks, congratulations, love emerging from friendship  
> daisy - April birth month flower, sincerity, mother's love, new beginnings
> 
> thank you for reading <3  
> 


End file.
